czech intensive, week one

Ahoj kamarady! Sorry I have not written in awhile; I see myself falling behind by a week now!

This week has been extremely busy but not terribly eventful. I started my Czech intensive class last Monday in the Main Building at Charles. Here is a photo of the view from my classroom:

I have class every day from 2 to about 6:15. We get two 15 minute breaks throughout the class which makes it much more bearable. On top of that, I ended up with what seems to be the best profesorka teaching our group. Ana is inventive, attentive, interactive, patient, kind and funny. She teaches us inventive ways to remember words and constantly has us repeat what she says and answer her questions (in Czech). It is a very difficult language but my background in Latin actually helps! Not only have I come across two verbs that are the same (videt - to see; sedet - to sit) but the grammatical structure is very similar.

After class on Monday a few of us went out to eat. The restaurant was nothing special, but it was cheap! Snitzel with french fries was my meal. Also, we passed the Goethe-Institut, a beautiful building that is also visible from the river:

I'm getting the days confused. Tuesday and Wednesday-- eh, I'm not sure what happened in the evenings. Nothing too exciting. Wednesday (or maybe Thursday?) instead of going until 6:15 our profesorka took us to The Grand Cafe Orient, allegedly one of the few examples of Cubist architecture in the world. (Vivian, could you help me out with this one?)

Anyway, it was nice.

At some point we made dinner in our NEW KITCHEN!

It's really really nice.


We watched a film in class on Friday, entitled Kolya. It was heartwarming and moving! The plot centered around an older Czech bachelor and a young Russian boy who ends up living with him. The plot is somewhat predictable (see any other film involving opposite roommates); the subplot contrasted life under Communist rule with the changes that resulted from the Velvet Revolution in 1989. And I recognized some Czech words! I would have been mostly lost without the subtitles, though.

After class I went shopping with my friend Mark. I got some pants and a skirt that was greatly reduced; Mark got a winter jacket. Zara is one of those stores that has a great disparity in pricing but one usually gets what one pays for (i.e. more expensive items are generally of higher quality). After Zara we went out to the cafe from our first night in Prague and ordered a lavish dinner. We split the "farmer's plate" which consisted of roast pork, smoked pork, rabbit, sausage, potato pancake, potato dumplings, cranberries, white & red cabbage. I can't explain how wonderful it was...

... and a crepe for dessert.